


Full of Possibilities

by Lady_Felucia



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), kylux - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Attempt at Humor, Developing Friendships, Domestic Fluff, Drunken Flirting, Drunken Kissing, Drunken Shenanigans, Eventual Happy Ending, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Funny, Gay, General Hux - Freeform, Implied Relationships, Kissing, Kylo Ren - Freeform, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Kylux - Freeform, Loneliness, Love, M/M, Male Friendship, Possibly Unrequited Love, Random & Short, Romantic Fluff, Short & Sweet, Short Story, Slow Romance, Some Plot, Star Wars - Freeform, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens(2015), Star Wars-All Media Types - Freeform, The First Order, The Force Awakens, Wine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2019-01-06 13:51:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12212574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Felucia/pseuds/Lady_Felucia
Summary: A chance (drunken) kissmayhave been the catalyst to spark a flame between Kylo Ren and General Hux.Or it could just lead into a much-needed friendship.Or maybe -- both?





	Full of Possibilities

General Hux walked in circles around his office, a piece of paper and a pen in his hand, speaking the words written on the paper out-loud to the listening furniture.

He was frustrated, and very tired.

His words kept coming out all jumbled up, and he continually reread, rewrote and scribbled all over the paper, trying to bring some sense out of his own garbled sentences.

He sat down on the edge of his desk, closing his eyes and speaking as much as he could based from memory when a slight sound directly in front of him broke his concentration.

He opened his eyes and saw that Kylo Ren was standing there, watching him with an amused expression on his face.

Seeing Ren in general was always a bit unnerving, because one never knew what sort of mood he would be in. Nine times out of ten it would be an angry, unstable one. 

But seeing him _now_ was even more unsettling, because one could actually see his FACE.

He had lost his menacing metal shield in the destruction of Starkiller, and for whatever reason had yet to make another one. His face wasn't all that bad; the only difference that Hux could see from how he looked before was a new, long scar that ran diagonally from cheek to eye.

Every time Hux saw that scar, now, he had to keep himself from laughing. For all that Kylo Ren bragged about and showed off his (admittedly impressive) skills in The Force, for all the years of training Snoke had given him, the terror he struck into everybody he encountered . . . 

. . . all of that but he had lost a lightsaber battle to a small, untrained scavenger girl.

And quite nearly lost his life, as well. The girl had left him on his back in the snow, bleeding out from several injuries and delirious with pain and anger. If Hux hadn't found him when he did, he probably would have died; if not from the bleeding then from the volcanic implosion of the planet that followed soon afterwards.

Truthfully, Hux had been in two minds about 'rescuing' Ren. On the one hand, he had direct orders from Supreme Leader Snoke to find him and bring him to the other base. 

But to Hux, that seemed a rather foolish move.

Ren had made not just one, but a series of mistakes and errors in judgement that, to Hux, was the main reason why they lost Starkiller.

The prisoner Poe Dameron, lauded Resistance pilot, had escaped him.

He hadn't acted on his intuition that the stormtrooper FN-2187 was having serious issues that needed immediate reconditioning, or elimination.

He had failed to retrieve the long sought-after map that led to the old Jedi Luke Skywalker, first from a droid, then from the girl.

Ren's father, _his own father_ , had managed to infiltrate their base and wire it with enough explosions to blow a hole wide in their shield, allowing the enemy to make its way in and systematically take everything out.

Ren had killed his father, yes; but Hux had reviewed the security footage from their moment on the bridge. The audio was damaged but even an idiot could see the doubt that had been on Ren's face, and how dangerously close he had leaned towards defecting and following his father home, and away from The First Order.

To Hux, Kylo Ren was a confused (and confusing) man, who lacked both conviction and the strong internal guide necessary to succeed in this organization. Made more dangerous by his unchecked "magic" abilities and a hair trigger temper.

If it had been up to Hux to decide, he would have simply left Kylo Ren for dead and pursued the girl, instead. Her Force abilities were raw and unfocused, but strong. If Snoke had HER in place of Ren, he would undoubtedly have a more level-headed, disciplined apprentice than Ren had turned out to be. 

In fact, Hux had a powerful intuition that this WAS what Snoke intended to do, should they ever find the girl. Hux didn't know a lot about the Force, light side or dark, but he had studied a bit in books.

Snoke and Ren always claimed that they weren't Siths, they were dark Force users. But to Hux their relationship seemed rather Sithlike. After all, there were _only two_ of them; a Master, and an Apprentice. One to hold the power, one to crave it. If Snoke ever did get his hands on the girl, Hux felt he would undoubtedly dispose of Ren, trade him in for the 'newer model', so to speak.

And, somewhere deep down inside himself, Ren probably KNEW this. Maybe it had been no accident that the girl had 'defeated' him, and gotten away.

Maybe he had **let** her get away.

Whatever the motives and the reasoning, the result was still the same. Hux still had to deal with this infuriating man standing in his office right now.

"I've always known you to be on shaky ground, concerning your mental facilities; but this is the first time I've ever heard you talking to yourself.", Ren said to him with a smirk.

"If you must know, I'm practicing my speech for the recruitment rally in a few days. We need to replace a great deal of soldiers and personnel; we lost far too many."

Ren shrugged as if the matter were unimportant to him.

"I know how you feel; I lost my helmet."

Hux looked at him in disbelief. He knew that Ren was delusional and self-absorbed, but this was a new level of narcissism, even for him.

"Surely you're not going to stand here and insult me by comparing the loss of your ridiculous helmet to the tragedy of losing lives at Starkiller Base?"

"It wasn't 'ridiculous'," Ren growled, glaring at him. There was only a few feet of space between where he stood and where Hux leaned against his desk, and Ren fought to resist the urge to cross that distance and hit him for his insolent insult. "It was very much a part of me, a part of the presence I command. Without it, I feel exposed."

"Good. Perhaps now you can _face_ those you put such fear into, without hiding behind the cowardice of that karking helmet."

"It's not hiding, you fool. It's protection. Without it, any harm could come straight towards your face. I should know; the one time I removed mine, the ONE time, disaster struck," he said, self-consciously tracing a finger down the damaged side of his head.

Hux watched him do this, and could barely keep the cynicism out of his voice as he said, "Oh, my, yes, you're right, Ren. Such a gaping wound you have there. You'd better get started on a new helmet right away."

"What do you know about wounds, Hux? 'Hiding' behind my helmet is far less of a fault than hiding behind a desk. When's the last time you were out on the field with the men you speak so highly of, instead of in _here_ , giving orders from afar? When's the last time a blaster tore your skin apart, or a lightsaber sliced down your face? You want to talk about cowardice, look at yourself, before you unfairly judge me!"

"You speak of being unfairly judged, yet you yourself are the biggest perpetrator of unwarranted judgement that I know. You think **I** don't have scars?", he asked angrily, reaching out and taking hold of Ren. "Just because I don't carry them around on my face like you do, doesn't mean they're not there," he said, shaking the knight softly. 

"I love my men and I do EVERYTHING I can to make sure they're prepared to make intelligent, informed decisions on the battlefield, and when I'm not doing that, I work to make their home lives better for them! That's more than I can say for you, and how you treat others; even your precious Knights of Ren that you claim to be so bonded to."

Ren stiffened at being grabbed, and Hux could tell that his tone and his demeanor was making him uneasy. It made him uneasy, as well. It was rare that Ren's prodding elicited such a reaction from the calm, controlled General, and it was somewhat frightening to know just how quickly he could let out his emotions now.

"Let go of me," Ren said through gritted teeth, and to Hux it appeared as though the man had to put _real_ effort into making his voice sound as threatening as it normally did. To Hux's ears, Ren's voice came out sounding unsure, devoid of authority and strength.

Weak, even.

Nevertheless, Hux DID let go of him, and walked back behind his desk. He sat in his chair with a graceless thump, not taking his eyes off the glowering Ren.

"I think our conversation is about over, Ren. Wouldn't you agree?", he said quietly, picking up his DataPad with fingers that were just slightly trembling. "Now if you don't mind, I have quite a bit of work to get through this evening."

Ren stared at him silently, arms folded across his chest, head tilted. His stance told Hux that Ren was internally debating with himself whether to further pursue his talk with the General, or to leave him alone as he was requesting.

He chose the latter.

He turned and walked out of Hux's office, leaving Hux to breathe a small sigh of relief.

\---

Later that evening, after his last meeting, Hux headed back to his office. He had a stack of papers on his desk that he wanted to get at least halfway through, before tomorrow.

As he walked up to his door, he was surprised to find that his light was already on.

He stepped inside, and was annoyed to find Kylo Ren in his office; not ONLY that, but sitting behind Hux's desk.

"Why are you IN here?", Hux demanded angrily, as the door slid shut behind him. Ren didn't answer; in fact, he barely looked up at Hux at all.

Getting closer, a strong smell suddenly hit Hux full in the nose. He noticed for the first time, that Ren was clutching in his hand a bottle of Nectar wine--HUX'S wine, the one he kept in the bottom drawer of his desk.

The bottle (which hadn't been opened before) was now 3/4 empty, and as Hux watched, Ren took another long pull from it, grimacing.

"Are you -- what --", Hux sputtered out, at a loss for words.

"Made new friend," Ren muttered, holding up the bottle before taking another swig. "Made ONLY friend."

His voice was blurry and quite heavily slurred, and it made Hux's face turn red in anger. Bad enough that he snuck into his office while he was away, bad enough he was sitting at Hux's desk, rummaging around in his drawers; but to be in here three sheets to the wind, and on Hux's own wine?

Hux could feel his fingers twitch longingly towards the blaster on his hip. Never had he been so inclined to shoot someone before.

Hux had just barely decided to take the bottle and smash it over Ren's head, when Ren shocked Hux to his core by suddenly, unexpectedly bursting into loud, shrill tears.

What in the 7 hells of Corelia?

"Ren, what is WRONG with you?!", Hux shouted at him, unable to contain himself any more.

No answer; just more of those odd tears.

Hux came closer to him, not really knowing how to handle this. He sighed and patted Ren cautiously on the back, attempting to calm him. He wasn't really prepared to handle this, certainly not equipped to handle such an onslaught of raw emotion.

The anger, yes, he could have dealt with. It was something he was used to, comfortable with. Ren would destroy something (or someone) in a fit of rage, and Hux would yell at him, they would fight; standard business.

But this . . . .

How was he supposed to deal with the tears? How was he supposed to deal with the drunkenness?

And, there was no mistake about it now: Kylo wasn't just a _little_ intoxicated. He was about a finger of alcohol's worth away from passing out on the floor. Besides the one near-empty bottle that Hux had seen in his hand, he now saw several _other_ bottles behind it, scattered along the floor.

The good stuff.

The **expensive** stuff.

 _You absolute **ass**_ , Hux thought to himself, _You are **definitely** going to be paying for all this, Ren._

Out-loud, though, he merely remained calm, and said "Come on, Ren, let's get you back to your quarters, okay?"

"Why?", Ren slurred loudly, taking another swig from the bottle in his hand. "To get me away from you? Why does nobody ever want to talk to me?!"

And he burst into tears yet again, laying his head on Hux's desk and sobbing into a stack of Hux's paperwork.

Hux sighed again, now feeling unsure of what to do. Ren was too big for Hux to just move on his own, and clearly, he wasn't in the mood to be very cooperative.

He could call stormtrooper guards to come and carry him back to his own quarters, but he didn't want to have to resort to that. As much he disliked the man, he would never put him into a position of vulnerability like that, where people could see him acting so unlike himself. He knew that if the situation were reversed, Ren wouldn't do that to him, either.

The only option he had, it seemed, was to sit back and talk to the man.

So Hux sat in the chair outside of his desk (noting to himself how funny it felt, to do so) and spoke softly him.

"It's not that I don't want to talk to you, Kylo," he said, hoping that addressing him by his first name would put him at ease a bit. He took off his hat and set it down in front of him. "It's just, I thought you looked a little tired. That's all."

Ren lifted his head slightly and looked at him, eyes still swimming with tears.

"Oh, don't lie to me, Hux. You hate me. I know it, you know it, everybody knows it."

"I don't _hate_ you, Kylo," he replied, picking his words carefully. "I just really dislike the things you do, sometimes."

As he was talking, he casually reached out and moved the still full bottle of liquor from within Ren's grasp and set it on the floor, by his feet. After thinking about it a moment, he lifted it up and took a long swallow himself. There was no way he could handle this _completely_ sober.

His head still in his arms, Ren mumbled something else.

"What?"

"Hungry," Ren repeated, his voice coming out thick and muffled.

"I'm not sure it would be wise for you to eat, in your condition."

Ren's response to that was to start crying, _yet again_ , and Hux heaved a resigned sigh.

"Okay, okay, calm yourself," he said, getting up and getting a large box of tissues from his cabinet drawer. He pulled out a handful and, lifting Ren's head up by his hair, began to wipe away his tears. At this point he was past worrying whether he was hurting him, and he was a tad rougher than necessary cleaning the man's face.

"We're not going anywhere until you look at least halfway decent," Hux muttered, releasing Ren's hair and letting his face hit the stack of papers with a full thump.

Ren groaned and straightened up slowly, trying to gain his feet. He staggered around in a small circle near Hux's desk, rapidly shaking his head as if to clear out the cobwebs.

"Okayletsgo," he said, his words all running into each other as he leaned heavily against Hux.

Mess Hall was only about 2 floors below them, normally a short, brisk walk. But of course, that wasn't the case now.

Hux stumbled, slipped and staggered down the hallways with Kylo Ren leaning against his side, one arm slung lazily over Hux's shoulders for support. Hux found himself out of breath before they had made it halfway down the first hall; and he thought they would die as he struggled to maneuver the two of them down the narrow stairways. Because, of course, the elevator lift was out of order. Again.

When they got there, Hux sat Ren down in one of the steel folding chairs at the end of one of the long tables, then he went to the door of the kitchen.

Before they had left his office, Hux had paged the Mess cook to meet them there. And he did, looking confused, tired and angry to have been roused from his bed so late. Then he took a good look at the uncharacteristically disheveled appearance of both men, and his confusion grew.

Hux ignored the look and spoke to him quietly, asking him to make Ren some basic food items, and a big pot of caffe. The man went immediately into the kitchen, throwing one last perplexed glance over his shoulder.

When Hux turned back towards Ren, he was annoyed to see that he had slid down so far at the table that he was nearly sitting on the floor.

With a huff, he put both arms around Ren's waist and hoisted him up until he was in a natural sitting position. He groaned as he straightened out; he was surely going to feel that strain in his back in the morning.

Ren's eyes were open now, and looking at Hux curiously.

"How'dwegethere?"

Hux rolled his eyes. "We walked. Just now."

"Okay," Ren said meekly, putting his head down on the table.

He lifted it when the chef brought out their food to them on a large tray. 

Hux watched him anxiously, praying that Ren had at least sobered up enough to pick up his own fork.

Manually feeding him was _not_ in Hux’s job description.

Then again, none of this was.

"Drink your caffe," Hux told him after he had taken a few bites.

"Don't like caffe," Ren growled, sounding just the tiniest bit like his normal self.

"I didn't ask whether you liked it or not. I don't care. Just drink."

So, Ren picked up his caffe and began sipping at it with a scowl, curling up the corners of his lips in disgust the entire time.

He ate his food slowly, and Hux watched him, his cheek propped on his fist. He was truly feeling tired, now, and looked forward to crawling into his bed and forgetting all of this.

When Ren was done, Hux supported him again as they made their way to Ren's quarters. When they got into his bedroom, Ren collapsed on top of his bunk, still fully clothed, his eyes going shut.

Hux lightly slapped his face to get his attention, and Ren looked at him blearily.

"Promise me that you'll stay in your room, I don't want to have to lock your door to keep you in. Stay in, and SLEEP. Okay?"

Ren nodded, then he whispered, in the voice of a young child before bedtime, "Can I tell you something?"

"What?"

"A monster. There's one in my closet. Monster."

Hux had to bite his lip to keep in his laugh. 

"If you think the one in your closet is bad, you should see the one in your bed. Now go to sleep."

"Check? Closet? Please?", Ren asked him, his eyes closing again, tears leaking out between his lids.

So Hux sighed and went over to Ren's closet, making a big production of loudly rifling through his clothes and banging against the tiny walls.

"See? No monster. You're fine," Hux told him as he closed the door. Ren nodded and smiled, even though his eyes were still squeezed tightly shut. "Now go to sleep."

“Tell you something else?”

Hux all but shrieked in exasperation. “For Maker’s sake, Ren! I’m tired! GO TO BED!”

“Come here,” Ren said, ignoring him.

So Hux came close.

Without warning, Ren’s hand shot out and grabbed the back of Hux’s neck. With surprising strength for one so intoxicated, he pulled Hux to him and planted a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss to Hux’s shocked lips.

"Hux. So pretty, Hux," he mumbled when he let him go, turning over on his side. Within a few moments, he was completely out of it, snoring loudly.

Hux turned and got out of there as quickly as he could, and walked back to his office, to clean up the boozy mess that Ren had left behind.

Before he left for the night, he calculated the cost of all the liquor Ren had drunk, and made a mark on his pay sheet.

Sympathetic or not, good wine didn't come cheap in their neck of the galaxy.

 

\---

The next morning, Ren didn't show up at the meeting. Hux had expected this, and therefore made an excuse to the rest of the Officers about Ren's absence. Yet when he still hadn't seen him skulking around by mid-afternoon, he became a little concerned.

He had the chef in the mess hall prepare a light meal and another strong pot of caffe, and he walked these, himself, down to Ren's quarters.

He had to knock several times before Ren let him in, and again, he had to stop himself from laughing at Ren's appearance. His face was pale, his eyes squinted even at the very dim lights of the hallway, and he noticeably grimaced at the sight of the food.

"Ren. Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to invite me in?", Hux asked him, and without waiting for a reply, he brushed past him and into the dark room.

He set the tray on the table and opened the curtains, chuckling at how Ren's face scrunched up at the sunlight.

Then Hux took a good look at him, and gasped slightly.

Ren wasn't wearing a shirt, so his upper body was bare, and Hux noticed several long, painful looking lines extending from his chest down to his sides.

"Maker, Kylo! Did you do that to yourself after I left last night? Should I take you to Med Bay?", Hux asked, pointing.

"What? No! These have been here for a long time."

"How did you DO that?", Hux asked, worried. He knew it was rude to stare but he couldn't help it; those lines looked like the most painful thing he had ever seen.

Ren frowned as he sat down beside him. "You ask a lot of intrusive questions," he told Hux, pulling a shirt that had been laying on the couch over his head. Before Hux could respond, Ren continued, reluctantly,

"Those are lightsaber scars. Snoke gave those to me during my training."

Hux nodded and looked away. He felt like his questioning was making Ren uncomfortable. 

"I brought you some food," he said, changing the subject. "I know it's the most unappetizing thing in the world right now, but you have to eat. The caffe, too. And these," he said, pulling a small bottle of pills from his pocket and handing them to Ren.

Ren nodded and unscrewed the cap, taking 4 of the little pills and swallowing them down dry. He picked up the fork and began to feed himself, slowly, looking as if he was struggling to get every bite down.

Hux looked around the walls of Ren's quarters. Apart from last night, when he hadn't been paying much attention to anything other than getting Ren into bed, he had never been in here before.

Covering the walls were a plethora of sketches and paintings, all of a woman. She was quite beautiful, with long brown hair, kind eyes, and a dazzling smile. The backgrounds of the pictures differed, as well as what she was wearing, but the lady remained the same.

"Do you have a secret wife or something, that I'm unaware of?", Hux asked, getting up and slowly circling the room, taking in the details of the many works of art.

"What? No! That's my grandmother, you idiot."

Hux turned towards him and raised an eyebrow. "Your grandmother? She looks awfully young for that," he said dryly.

Ren rolled his eyes. "That's her in her youth. Around when she was a part of the Galactic Senate and the old Republic.

Hux nodded again. "Was this during the time she was -- married, to your grandfather, too?"

"Yes."

"Did you do these?"

"No. Lord Vader did. Apparently after her--uh, her death, he become obsessed with committing her image to canvas. His entire personal palace on Mustafar was filled with these. After he died, black market traders raided it and sold all his things to 'collectors'. That's how I got his helmet, and his cape. I procured as many of these drawings as I could but I know there's still a lot out there, waiting to be found."

Hux sat back down and picked up his own cup of caffe. "Well, they're beautiful," he said, taking a sip. "I never would have thought a dark lord of the Sith would also have artistic talent."

"Sometimes people are surprising,", was all the commentary Ren offered on that, reluctantly sipping his cup of caffe.

"So, General Hux," he said after a few moments, "Not that I don't appreciate the gift of food, but-- _why_ are you here?"

Hux shrugged. "It's rather late in the day, and I hadn't seen you at all."

"You could have sent one of your minions to check on me, though. You didn't have to come yourself."

Hux could feel his face turn red, and he looked down at the floor. 

"You could just be appreciative, and stop questioning my motives. When somebody does something nice for you, greeting them with suspicion is not exactly friendly."

"That's okay; we're not exactly friends," Ren retorted, taking another sip of caffe.

Hux smiled. "Thank the Maker for _that_."

"Can I ask you something?", Kylo said.

"Yes?"

"Why in the world do you have so much wine stashed in your desk? Are you an alcoholic or something?"

Now Hux burst out laughing.

"No! When I have wine, I have two glasses, at the most. That's what refined people do; they don't swill it out of the bottle like a fish."

Ren scowled, but made no reply to Hux's dig. Hux took advantage of his silence to ask another question.

"So, are you ready to talk to me, about whatever happened that possessed you to drink yourself into a stupor, in MY office?"

Kylo shrugged his shoulders. "Look, Hux, I'm going to pay for your kriffing wine. But I don't want to sit here and tell you about my problems. You won't understand."

Hux sighed and poured himself another cup of caffe. He watched the steam squiggle up from the cup for a while, before responding.

"Maybe I won't understand, but I can at least listen, and talk to you. Isn't that what you were just complaining about last night? That no one ever talks to you?"

Ren was silent, and it seemed as though he wasn't going to say anything at all. Hux twirled his finger aimlessly across the surface of his coffee cup, and was about to get up and leave when Ren spoke quietly, reluctantly to him.

"I needed to block."

"To--block?"

"To block. There were too many bad things in my head and I needed an escape."

Hux frowned at that. 

"I can understand the need to escape, Ren, believe me, I can. But in the future, if you need to escape, I'd rather you came and talked to me, rather than a wine bottle. It's unhealthy."

"Snoke says that --"

"-- Snoke told you that suffering is meant to be done in silence, and to be kept to yourself. Right? Am I right in that he told you that?"

Kylo nodded reluctantly.

"Okay. Well. Normally I'd agree with that, but in this case, that sounds like bantha fodder. You and I have known each other for some time, now, and whether we actually _like_ each other or not shouldn't mean we can't TALK to one another if need be. Okay?"

Again, Ren nodded. He was unused to others showing concern for him, or offering to help him with his problems. He was mistrustful and a bit scared of Hux's sudden spurt of friendliness, so he coped with it in his usual way: sarcasm and jokes.

"Well, I promise, next time I won't drown my sorrows in your wine, alright? I'll drown myself in one of those cute little assistants of yours instead. Probably be a lot less messy, and I won't feel so horribly the morning after."

“I can agree with that. Just don’t get as hands-on with them, like you did with me, unless they give you the go-ahead first. The last thing I need to deal with is a harassment suit.”

Ren looked at him in confusion.

“What do you mean, hands on?”

Hux rolled his eyes. “I suppose you don’t remember that, either. How convenient.”

“Seriously, what are you talking about?”

“The – the kiss,” Hus said reluctantly. “Last night, when I was putting you in your bed. You kissed me.”

Ren did something that Hux would not have thought him capable of: he blushed. He turned nearly as red as Hux’s own hair, and suddenly occupied himself with a loose thread in his robes.

“I’m sorry. I don’t remember that at all.”

“I KNOW you don’t, you idiot. But it clarifies my point, here: no more drinking. At least not MY wine, and not when you’re anywhere near me. I’m not looking for a repeat.”

Was it his imagination, or did Ren look a bit sad when Hux said that last part? And why did Hux suddenly feel the need to apologize for saying it? He decided to follow Ren’s former lead and make a joke of it instead.

“Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t let anyone get that far with me until I’ve at least gone out with them a few times, or we’ve had a few conversations.”

“You and I have gone off this base a thousand times together. And we talk all the time.”

What the hells?  
Why was he sounding so serious about this?

“Everything we do is work-related. I’m talking about romance.”

Ren was silent for a few moments, as if thinking it over. 

“What KIND of ‘conversations’?”, he asked Hux anxiously.

“Why are you asking?”

“Curiosity.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Ren! About; books, or the weather, or food. Honestly, whatever it is normal people talk about. That’s all I want, really, to feel NORMAL. Even if its only for a few hours. To talk to someone and not have to think about this place, or all the things I have to worry about.”

 

 

He stopped talking abruptly and bit his lip. That was the most information he had ever shared about his personal desires with ANYBODY, and it made him uncomfortable.

He was also thinking, again, about the kiss. Why he couldn’t get it out of his mind, he didn’t know. Why he felt excited that Ren seemed to be showing some small interest in what had happened, he didn’t know. He knew that the man had been drunk, and wasn’t aware of his actions, but still. Drunk or not, sloppy or not, the man had had _incredibly_ soft lips. Hux wasn’t sure why he was (still) thinking of this, but it was on his mind nonetheless.

Ren was looking at him in a thoughtful, contemplative way, as if what Hux had just told him was the most fascinating thing in the world.

"What I told you, Kylo, is very personal. It's not something I would want repeated," he said sternly, looking Ren in the eye. "The kind of information I'd entrust to--to--"

" -- a friend?", Ren finished for him, smirking.

"Yes. A friend."

They both looked at each other for a few long, silent moments, and then Hux quickly stood up and began gathering his things.

"I have to get back to work," he said, not looking Ren in the eye. "I'll send somebody to come collect the tray and dishes later."

Ren nodded, also not looking directly at Hux. 

As Hux got to the door, Ren said, behind him, "'Soresu'."

"What?", Hux asked, turning around.

"That's the last book I read. Am still reading," he corrected himself. "It's one of the forms of lightsaber combat. There are seven. This is the third. Snoke has detailed books on all seven forms, and I'm trying to read about all of them."

Hux slowly came back towards Ren, and sat down beside him once more.

"'Coboko Fishing Techniques'", Hux said after a while. "They live in the underground lakes of Almas. They're a delicacy, but dangerous to try and catch because of the planets toxic atmosphere."

Ren nodded, and began to ask questions about Hux's book. Hux answered them, and asked his own questions about Ren's.

Hux felt like _something_ was happening, he just wasn’t sure WHAT. Some small but tiny spark that had lit between them, and was growing steadily brighter the longer they sat and talked in this room.

 _Whatever it is, just GO with it_ , he thought to himself, and he remained talking and laughing with Ren the rest of the afternoon.


End file.
